New signs show seasonal changes at work in North Texas’ housing market

Over the spring and summer there was a surge of “sold” signs popping up in front of Dallas-area houses.

The best housing market in probably a decade had buyers scrambling to tie up properties.

Lately I’ve been seeing some signs that say things have changed. They say “reduced” or “new price” — signs that were all too familiar during the recession.

They are turning up in front of houses that were on the market this summer and still haven’t sold.

Actually, this is a good sign for our home market. It means normal seasonal factors have cooled the residential buying business by just a bit.

And those worries about the potential for another housing bubble are probably off the mark.

Pending home sales in North Texas — the number of house purchases in the works — are now down to the lowest point since January.

The number of home listings coming on the market each month is also back to where it was early this year.

The increases in sales listings and pending sales that started last spring have subsided.

Some things haven’t changed, even with the coming of fall.

North Texas housing inventories — the number of pre-owned homes listed for sale with a real estate agent — are at the lowest point in more than a decade.

Currently there’s about a three-month supply of single-family homes on the market with agents. It’s about half what is considered a “normal” market.

On average, it now takes less than two months to sell a pre-owned home in North Texas. A recent report from Zillow Inc., the online home marketing firm, found that the Dallas area has one of the fastest home sales period among major U.S. markets.

Nationwide, the days-on-market total is closer to three months.

The average time it takes to sell a house in North Texas is almost 40 percent less than it was in late 2010 and early 2011, statistics from the Real Estate Center at Texas AM University show.

In a few Dallas-area residential districts — The Colony, Coppell and Grapevine — it has taken only about a month this year to sell a house.

The big question housing analysts are asking is what happens after the holidays are over and the spring housing market warms up.

Will there be another runaway home sales market in the Dallas area like this year?

“The real test will come again in the spring,” said Dr. James Gaines, an economist with the Real Estate Center. “If we get 20 percent-plus growth in April, May and June of next year over the highs posted this past spring, then we’ll be seeing some really outstanding — and probably unsustainable — growth.”

Most housing experts are betting that 2014 will be a bit slower because of higher interest rates and rising prices.

“I expect demand to remain strong because of the strong job growth in the region, but year-over-year gains will slow from the torrid growth earlier in the year,” said David Brown, who heads the Dallas office of housing analyst Metrostudy Inc.

Follow Steve Brown on Twitter at @SteveBrownDMN.